Thursday, 3 August 2017

My First Fantasy Skeletons

Over on the Oldhammer Forums there is a pretty cool challenge in the painting area for people to post pictures of Fantast models that they have never attempted before...so here is my attempt! Loads of skeletons!

Frequent readers of my blog will know I am mainly a sci-fi painter with a bit of historical goodness occasionally thrown in for a bit of variety; so aside from a recent commission to paint up some Frostgrave warbands for Joe McCullough (the author of that game) these skeletons are in fact my first fantasy miniatures.

I also decided to give these guys a whirl for a bit of a change after having been churning out warbands for my own up-and-coming Crusade era rules; Outremer: Faith and Blood.

The Skellies themselves are all metal miniatures from a variety of sources and they were cleaned up and based as usual.

I really wanted to use these guys as something of a test for the Army Painter (AP) range of paints as I usually use Foundry and Citadel products. That being said I had received the huge Army Painter boxset as a Christmas present and hadn't had a chance to use them until now.

I basecoated all the models with AP Skeleton Bone spray and then touched the gaps up with the normal version of the same paint.

The weapons were then basecoated with AP Leather Brown, two thin coats work best so as not to obscure the detail.

I then washed the whole model with AP Strong Tone which I found to be much stronger than GWs Agerax Earthshade.

I don't like skeletons with pristine bones, I think warriors who've been under the ground for a prolonged period probably wouldn't look like brand new biology lab display models and so I wanted a rougher effect. This made dry brushing an excellent option and so I applied a heavy dry brush of AP Skeleton Bone over the relevant areas. This wasn't quite bright enough for my tastes and so I was forced to revert to citadel/foundry with a layered highlight of GW Screaming Skull, followed by Foundry Boneyard Light.

The wood was highlighted with AP Leather Brown followed by AP Kobold Flesh.

I wanted all the metal to look suitable warn and so Iron areas were painted AP Gun Metal, washed with AP Strong Tone then drybrushed with AP Dry Rust, scratches were then applied in a lighter metallic colour. For the worn bronze I had to revert to GW again and based this with GW Balthasar Gold, washed with GW Agrax Earthshade and layered with GW Sycorax Bronze. When the metallics were dry I liberally applied GW Nihilakh Oxide to the recesses, building this up where appropriate!

I then washed the bases with AP Strong Tone, highlighted with a light grey and applied AP Swamp Tufts and voila.... My first batch of undead models complete!!!!

I really loved painting these guys, they were such a great change from my usual models that it felt really fresh and new! I'm pleased with how they turned out and despite being painted really quickly I think they look good and I certainly wouldn't be ashamed to field them on the wargames table!

I must say I was really impressed with the Army Painter range and I will certainly be incorporating more of these excellent resources into my many assorted painting projects!! I'm sure I'll be painting some more undead in the future!!!!

great work on your freshly risen undead warband, so glad to see some of Harlquin Miniatures skeletons painted up, I see so few painted examples around it's a shame, as I have close to 20 of them myself.

What fantastic looking model skeletons. Old bonies are, I think, one of the hardest miniatures to get 'right', both in terms of sculpting and painting. You have chosen a superb collection of models and done them real justice with your hairywand skills. I also love the way the WIP photographs allow the models to pop before the reader's eyes.

Thanks Orlygg! I've never been massively into fantasy but I've always liked the idea of skeletons ever since watching Jason and the argonauts as a kid!! I have to say I was a bit pensive at first as they are very much one colour models so it can be hard to make them visually pleasing!